Renée Fleming

Decca Congratulates Renée Fleming On National Medal of Arts Presented By Barack Obama

Photo: Pete Marovich / Getty Images

President Barack Obama has presented soprano Renée Fleming with the 2012 National Medal of Arts “for her contributions to American music.” Among those who also received honours in the East Room of the White House, in the presence of the First Lady, were filmmaker George Lucas, comedy actress Elaine May and jazz legend Allen Toussaint. It is the highest honour for achievement in the arts conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people in USA.

The White House citation said: “Known to many as ‘the people's diva,’ Ms Fleming has captivated audiences around the world with an adventurous repertoire spanning opera and the classical tradition to jazz and contemporary pop.”

Decca offers its warmest congratulations to Ms Fleming for this much deserved distinction.

The Award comes in another hugely successful year for Ms Fleming in which she performed live for Her Majesty The Queen as part of the Diamond Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace, and won a Grammy for her best-selling Poèmes album on Decca.

Guilty Pleasures, the eagerly-awaited sequel to her 1999 Grammy-winning album The Beautiful Voice, is released by Decca in September. It features a feast of highly personal songs and arias from operas by Dvorak, Smetana and Tchaikovsky which audiences would not usually hear her sing, together with indulgences such as Danny Boy, John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles and the 'Flower Duet' from Delibes Lakmé, for which she is joined by Susan Graham.